Item: Indian Adept (siddha)

Shantipa, Jalandhara, Tantipa (Thagapa?) and a yogin standing on a corpse: from the group of 84 mahasiddhas according to the system of Vajrasana. The full set of paintings, the complete composition, was made up of twenty-nine individual works.

Shantipa: at the top center he holds the right hand in the mudra of Dharma explication and the left in the mudra of fearlessness. Wearing the orange and red patchwork robes of a monk, the head is crowned with a red pandita hat.

Tantipa, the weaver: at the bottom left wearing the garb of a layman he holds a loom in his lap as he works.

At the bottom right a wildly dancing yogi holding a curved flaying knife in the right hand and an upraised skullcup in the left stands atop a corpse seat. A small form of the tutelary deity Vajrayogini hovers in the sky above.

Jeff Watt 4-2000